Life Tributes
Kathleen Gail Bridget Mullan Piñon-Cassidy September 28, 1938 - November 28, 2023
SAN DIEGO — Kathleen Gail Bridget Mullan PiñonCassidy, 85, of San Diego, California, passed away on November 28 at her home with her family by her side. In keeping with her philosophy of life, she donated her body to the UCSD School of Medicine.
Kathleen was born on September 28, 1938, to the late James Patrick Cassidy and Mary Patricia Mullan Cassidy in Providence, Rhode Island. She was the third of 4 sisters and grew up in a working-class Irish neighborhood. James and Mary were hard-working immigrants who labored tirelessly to give their daughters a safe and loving childhood. When it was financially feasible, James built a summer home for the family by the river in Apponaugh, RI. He wanted his daughters out of the summer heat of the city and away from crowds where the polio virus bred. Kathleen’s memories of Apponaugh and her childhood were idyllic, and she said she was blessed by her parents for giving her an “incomparable” childhood. After Apponaugh, James built 2 summer homes in Bonnet Shores, Narragansett, RI. Kathleen would make regular summer trips to Bonnet Shores for the rest of her life to re-experience the warmth of her family, her beloved 3 sisters (best friends), and the wondrous ocean.
Kathleen was raised in the Roman Catholic Church and was a proud practicing Catholic until her death. She believed that every person is created in the image of God and must be treated with love, compassion, kindness, respect, and dignity. She was a lover of animals, seeing them as God’s creation also worthy of love, compassion, kindness, respect, and dignity. This applied not only to nature’s most majestic animals or family pets but also to skunks, raccoons, opossums, spiders, etc. with which she would interact. She was a fervent environmentalist who believed that it was humanity’s obligation to take care of our beautiful planet. She had no patience for “wastrels,” people who wasted the Earth’s precious resources. Kathleen loved reading and writing, and was especially fond of poetry. She recited her favorite poems until her final days.
She left behind dozens of letters, stories about her childhood, her family, her travels, memoirs, and two long literary works – Memoirs of a Spanish Duck (the adventures of an adopted duck) and A Journey to Winnipeg (a passionate memoir of her struggle to overcome the devastation of Rh incompatibility).
After Kathleen graduated from St. Xavier Academy in 1956, she went to the University of Rhode Island and received her BA in English in 1960, with minors in Philosophy and Psychology. After graduating, another defining characteristic of her life would appear. She decided, against her father’s advice, to travel to Europe by herself. She arranged a job in Switzerland and spent the next six months traveling and working her way through 6 different countries. She walked over the Alps to Rome, Italy the site of the 1960 Olympics. She then went to County Mayo, Ireland, her father’s ancestral home, to help care for her grandmother during her final illness.
After her return, she enrolled at Fordham University in New York City to become a social worker, but soon met Ramon Piñon Jr, a graduate student at Brown University, the man who would become her dedicated husband, partner, lover, and friend. Despite Kathleen warning Ramon that she wanted 11 children, they married in 1962. Kathleen and Ramon had their first child, Christopher, in 1963. Chris was the first of 10 children, 6 biological and 4 adopted. They also suffered the tragic loss of 5 babies, 3 of whose deaths were due to blood Rh incompatibility. In 1974, when it appeared that Kathleen would lose another baby to blood Rh incompatibility, she traveled to the Rh Laboratory in Winnipeg, Canada, under the direction of Dr. John Bowman, which specialized in intrauterine transfusions necessary to save her baby’s life. Since the family budget was tight, many of her trips to Winnipeg for treatment were done via the Greyhound bus! Thanks to Kathleen’s determination, Dr. Bowman’s expertise, and 4 intrauterine transfusions, her daughter Kathleen Ana Canada (Katy) was born healthy in 1975.
After meeting on the East Coast, Kathleen and Ramon went to the Netherlands for Ramon’s postgraduate work. In Holland, they had James and adopted Andrew (Tony) on a trip to Italy. In 1967, they moved to Seattle, Washington with 3 children and soon adopted Ramon IV and Maria. They developed deep friendships with the Chatard and Christopher families, which would last for the rest of their lives. In 1972, Ramon was offered a professorship at UCSD and moved the family to San Diego. They bought a home in Mission Hills and welcomed Joseph, Katy, Tomas, and Raquel to bring the total number of children to 9.
Kathleen was not quite finished with children. She became an emergency foster parent and cared for 129 foster children over 12 years. They adopted Rebeka, who completed their family at 10 children. Taking care of so many foster children, in addition to her own children, was time-consuming. Thanks to Ramon’s academic career, she was rewarded with sabbatical trips to Denmark in 1979-1980, Spain in 1986–1987, 1992–1994, and 2008– 2009. Including the earlier 2 years in the Netherlands, Kathleen and Ramon lived 7 years in Europe. In addition to seeing most of the countries in Western Europe, Kathleen also traveled to the USSR, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Romania before the “fall of the wall”. Later she would travel to Haiti, Jamaica, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Morocco, and Australia. She would never turn down a trip, especially if it involved a new country. “Have Bag, Will Travel” was her motto.
After she stopped foster parenting, Kathleen started taking foreign exchange students and hosting medical students from countries around the world who were doing their external clinical rotations at the UCSD School of Medicine. She felt that since she had been treated so well during her travels, it was her duty to reciprocate the same with her students. Over 10 years, she would host 135 students from 16 countries. One of her students, Simona, became one of her daughters-inlaw (married to Tomas), her foreign exchange souvenir!
Kathleen was predeceased by her parents James Patrick Cassidy and Mary Patricia Mullan Cassidy and her babies Rachel, Ramon III, Dimitri, Carlos, and John. She is survived by her 3 sisters, Ann Morrill and husband Ken, Mary Hebert, and Christine McLeod, her 10 children and their spouses: Christopher Piñon of Lille, France; Andrew and Maggie Piñon of San Diego, CA; James Piñon and Sandra Montoya of San Diego, CA; Ramon Piñon IV and Vicki Beard of San Diego, CA; Maria Backer of San Diego, CA; Joseph and Angie Piñon of Oakland, CA; Kathleen Piñon of San Diego, CA; Tomas Piñon and Simona Piñon-Buergi of Portland, OR; Raquel Piñon-Cassidy of San Diego, CA; Rebeka Piñon-Cassidy of Los Angeles, CA; and 13 grandchildren (in order of age): Aleksi Backer, Michael Backer, Santiago Piñon, Nicole Piñon, Joseph Piñon, Faith Piñon, Nicholas Piñon, Dashiell Piñon, Jude Piñon, Ethan Piñon-Larkin, Isaac Piñon, Dimitri Piñon, and Enzo Piñon.
Kathleen was a dreamer, a caretaker, and a force of nature. She touched many lives and positively impacted everyone she met. She will be missed, and her passing will be felt deeply. There will be a Celebration of Life at 10 a.m. on Saturday, February 3, 2024, at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Old Town. There will be a subsequent Celebration of Life that will be held in Narragansett, Rhode Island in July 2024 (date and details to be determined) for the East Coast family and friends. In lieu of flowers, please donate in support of causes that were close to Kathleen’s heart to include National Wildlife Foundation, San Diego Food Bank, and Smile Train.